Written by

Susan Davis

USA Today

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, speaks with reporters following a strategy session at the Capitol on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2013. House GOP leaders are looking to reverse course and agree to tea party demands to try to use a vote this week on a must-pass temporary government funding bill to block implementation of President Barack Obama's health care law. / J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press

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WASHINGTON — House Republicans will vote Friday on a stopgap spending measure that defunds the Affordable Care Act, setting up a confrontation that could lead to a government shutdown.

“We listened to our colleagues over the course of the last week,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. “We have a plan that they’re happy with. We’re going forward.”

The GOP plan would approve a spending bill through Dec. 15, eliminate money for the 2010 health care law, and prioritize debt payments if Congress does not raise the nation’s debt ceiling by mid-October. The latter would result in much of the federal government shutting down.

President Barack Obama, speaking Wednesday to the Business Roundtable, a group of CEOs, said the Republican plan was irresponsible and that holding an existing law hostage to budget negotiations was unprecedented. Imagine the political reaction, Obama said, if a Democratic House speaker told a Republican president: We won’t raise the debt ceiling unless you raise corporate taxes by 20 percent.

“That can’t be a recipe for government,” Obama said.

Senate Democrats said they will reject the language regarding the health care law and return to the House a spending measure without strings attached to keep the government running. Whether the House approves the returned measure will determine whether the government will begin shutdown protocols Oct. 1, they said.

“I’ve told the speaker personally, I told the Republican leader here in the Senate personally and directly, we are not going to have them hold the (spending bill) or a debt ceiling hostage to Obamacare. We’re not going to do that,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

“House Republicans have decided to pursue a path away from the center, away from compromise,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday, calling the House GOP’s latest budget plan one that increases the chances for “a wholly unnecessary and damaging shutdown of the government.”

Senators resist

There is some resistance among Republicans in the Senate on the House GOP plan.

“I’m not in the shut-down-the-government crowd, I’m in the take-over-the-government crowd,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

Alexander said the Republicans should focus on making their case to the electorate ahead of the 2014 and 2016 elections. “Only when we elect more (Republican) senators can we actually change Obamacare,” he said.

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., also said a shutdown was not in the GOP’s interest, but said Republicans want to force action in the Senate on the health care law. “We have some leverage there,” he said. “We have some Democratic vulnerabilities. We have a lot of Democrats who don’t want to have to vote on this, and that frankly might want to work with us in some way to not have to face that choice, but we’ll never know that if we can’t get the vehicle over there to them to have a chance to deal with it.”

The GOP plan is twofold. After the vote on the spending bill this week, House Republicans will vote as early as next week on a legislative package to raise the nation’s borrowing limit for one year. But the debt ceiling increase — which the administration strongly supports — will include provisions the administration opposes: Delaying implementation of the health care law; an agreement to begin construction of the Keystone oil pipeline, and a mandate to overhaul of the tax code and lower energy prices, among others, said Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.

Cantor’s office also announced that the House will reconvene next Wednesday until the spending dispute is resolved. The House was initially scheduled to be in recess next week.

Republicans emerging from Wednesday’s meeting with the understanding that the tougher showdown is likely to come on the debt ceiling vote. “Our perception is the debt ceiling is where the success will be,” said Rep. John Fleming, R-La.

Senate Democrats and the White House have so far held firm that they will not negotiate with Republicans on either the stopgap spending measure or the debt ceiling vote. Obama reiterated that pledge Wednesday in a speech before the Business Roundtable, which represents the nation’s top executives.

“We’re not going to set up a situation where the full faith and credit of the United States is put on the table every year or every year and a half and we go through some sort of terrifying financial brinksmanship because of some ideological arguments that people are having about some particular issue of the day. We’re not going to do that,” Obama said.